What Was IT Like at Your School?

News that the U.K. is scrapping its unloved IT curriculum has been well received, but how important were school lessons? TechEurope asked a range of entrepreneurs from around Europe what they learned at school, and whether it was what persuaded them to take up the career they have.

What were your experiences of computing at school? Was it inspiring and encouraged you to follow a career in IT, or was it lessons in how to add the “breaking glass” effect to a PowerPoint presentation?

2. What did you learn about computing in school (say up to 16)? Did you learn how to write code? Or did you learn how to use PowerPoint and Excel?

We learned no coding from the school side. I learned to code Basic on my Commodore 64 at seven. In high school we were offered and had Computer Science as an optional class. All the geeks took it, it was very good. I never heard about any other Danish high school having it as a class, it was more down to one passionate guy.

3. Would you say your school lessons helped you become more interested in computing?

I think our school computers were consistently worse than anything I had at home. Computer Science in high school got me more interested in the formal aspects of coding.

4. If you had some examples (good or bad) of your school computing experiences that would be great.

I remember first computer science class in high school. The teacher was walking us through these “Hello World” examples in visual basic. Before the first hour is done my buddy Robert had done a complete 3D walk-through environment, including collision detection, his way of saying – “don’t need this”

Later in the year, everyone was playing Tetris and it was about having the best high score. I was too lazy to play, so I went in and hacked the executable file and edited my high score on all the computers. Unfortunately I had not heard about buffer overrun, so the number I picked was too long, which made all the computers crash at random intervals with a popup with a very long number and my name next to it. I was banned from the computer room for a week.

I graduated from two high schools, first in Lithuania (I went to school in Lithuania back when Lithuania was part of the Soviet Union), then from a U.S. high school in Ohio.

The Lithuania school simply had no computers at all. We had a class called “informatics” where they taught us of the basics of algorithms, computer logic, etc. Funny, they taught us coding (BASIC, PASCAL) languages, except we wrote code in our notebooks and test sheets (pen & paper) instead of computers. I was lucky to have a ZX Sinclair at home at that time where I really learned and did my first code (also BASIC language). Without internet references and special literature at all, my way of studying literally was trial and error.

In my case, I was fond of computers/coding way before I touched the subject at school, so the latter didn’t really influence my interest. Both my parents were engineers, so through their work I sometimes had access to computers starting at a really young age (I think six or seven), this was what influenced my interest and eventually the career choice (though not education choice, interestingly, as I studied economics in the university).

Another interesting context, really relevant to Lithuania and the whole of Eastern Europe. Until recently, computer piracy was really widely spread in our region. As a result, we as teenagers not only had unlimited access to computer games ($1 for a CD full of PC games, like 50-100 of them, all latest and greatest), but also all professional software (professional graphics packages like PhotoShop, 3D Studio Max, etc., professional SDKs like MS Visual Studio, Borland, etc. products, game engines/SDKs, etc., all for the same $1).

With unlimited games, you soon get bored (which is my case too) and play with all the pro software (costing literally thousands) just for fun. Especially when there was nothing else to do after school (in Eastern Europe you don’t start working until after university, the school doesn’t really have sports, etc. clubs, so computer is your only toy). I would say this unlimited access to professional software packages really accounts for the high computer skills that I had and all of teenagers around me had. I realize the practice was illegal and this is not the way things should be done, but at least you have a data point that simply giving youngsters access to professional tools is enough to get them motivated to learn everything themselves, without any formal education. So maybe there should be policy of granting some “kid” licenses.

2. What did you learn about computing in school (say up to 16)? Did you learn how to write code? Or did you learn how to use PowerPoint and Excel?

Everyone had to learn the Office package and we were given school assignments to surf the internet for info (it was all new back then). I did learn programming in high school, but it was an electable course.

3. Would you say your school lessons helped you become more interested in computing?

I would say no, because the skills were not taught in an inspirational manner.

4. If you had some examples (good or bad) of your school computing experiences that would be great.

My best computer science teacher was at university, she talked programming not just as tool but explained what different programming languages are good for and tough how to learn different languages as well, rather then a specific tool.

I went to school in small town Ozersk, Chelyabinsk region, Ural part of Russia. I swapped two schools, both were with somewhat math/science specialization (it means that you have got a bit more math and physics classes than in usual school). I think every town in Russia has at least one math/physics school, or at least some kind of specialization inside standard schools.

2. What did you learn about computing in school (say up to 16)? Did you learn how to write code? Or did you learn how to use PowerPoint and Excel?

I think it was some kind of auxiliary workshops when I first get my hands on a PC in the school. I think I was 13 or 14. Though I already know a bit about programming since I had a ZX Spectrum clone at my home and kind of loved to mess with it. However, the PC was like another world and it was a serious business. We got a bunch of older 386 PC ATs, and a couple of newer 486. I think 80% of the time we actually learned Pascal and wrote code. That was really fascinating. I’d programmed an animated bouncing ball on my first workshop visit. Next year we have got official CS classes. They were called “informatica”, so we learned about information measures, basic principles of computing and stuff like that, most of which was already quite familiar to me.

3. Would you say your school lessons helped you become more interested in computing?

Definitely yes. Though I believe my CS curiosity ignited before and had nothing to do with school, but those workshops and informatica classes kept it hot. Partially due to them I’d chosen applied math faculty and studied CS later in the university.

2. What did you learn about computing in school (say up to 16)? Did you learn how to write code? Or did you learn how to use PowerPoint and Excel?

I was at school from 1981-1987 and at that time we received very limited coding training. I think I had a total of 20 hours of coding training during those six years. PowerPoint and Excel did not exist at the time.

3. Would you say your school lessons helped you become more interested in computing?

Jena, (former East) Germany. A town known for its intellectual elite (Goethe, Schiller, etc) and inventors of planetarium and optical devices (by Carl Zeiss).

2. What did you learn about computing in school (say up to 16)? Did you learn how to write code? Or did you learn how to use PowerPoint and Excel?

We did not have these tools back then, and I doubt we would have spent time on them as they are easy to learn. We were taught assembler and basic on the then-available computers.

3. Would you say your school lessons helped you become more interested in computing?

Definitely so! They were a great inspiration. I got a Commodore and Atari later (when the wall came down) at home and programmed games and alike.

4. If you had some examples (good or bad) of your school computing experiences that would be great.

Back then (until 1992), computing was not top on the list of teaching items—so I only have the good memories of being able to program a machine to do something (blink an LED, make a cursor appear, etc). If I had to decide on teaching computers at school today, I would insist on doing it, but rather fundamental programming paradigms (in almost any language of choice but C++ is probably a good thing to start with), and with hands-on experience. The kids would love it for sure!

I went to Carl Robert Jacobson gymnasium in Viljandi, Estonia. I was in math-physics class.

2. What did you learn about computing in school (say up to 16)? Did you learn how to write code? Or did you learn how to use PowerPoint and Excel?

We had two different computer classes. One which was about Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc. And other one was about HTML, Javascript and I believe in the end also some PHP. We had the possibility to choose which class we wanted to attend. All the girls chose the Word etc class, all boys chose programming class. For me personally it was boring because I knew all this stuff, I learned it by myself when I was I think 14.

3. Would you say your school lessons helped you become more interested in computing?

It didn’t help me but I think it helped some other guys who didn’t know what to study after high school. At the beginning I was the only nerdy guy interested in programming. After attending this class and finishing high school, four of my friends also came with me to study informatics.

4. If you had some examples (good or bad) of your school computing experiences that would be great.

We also had change to participate in Tartu University Science School. It’s program for high school kids to learn math, physics, informatics on higher level when high school isn’t challenging enough. It was the first time I was introduced to Java and constructing difficult algorithms. I think it helped a lot.

2. What did you learn about computing in school (say up to 16)? Did you learn how to write code? Or did you learn how to use PowerPoint and Excel?

Basic programming, Visual Basic programming, excel advanced macros (visual basic). Then I wrote my first inventory database using those skills. I was able to write code, build applications. That was fun. PowerPoint and Excel are strong development tools, if you use Visual Basic macros. It’s really good starting point. Today they should learn Google Docs, it’s a very powerful development platform.

3. Would you say your school lessons helped you become more interested in computing?

Yes, we had access to computing and it was privilege. No one had many PCs at home then.

4. If you had some examples (good or bad) of your school computing experiences that would be great.

We got a deep understanding how PCs are working (even I am able to assemble a PC from pieces even today if needed), plus how memory works, and everything else. On top of that its really easy to start developing. Learning applications was never the what we did. When you feel yourself comfortable in basic things – you understand how to use software you never saw before.

Mostly in the Netherlands, in the Amsterdam region, in what is considered the ‘highest’ level of high school in the country (‘VWO’/'Gymnasium’).

2. What did you learn about computing in school (say up to 16)? Did you learn how to write code? Or did you learn how to use PowerPoint and Excel?

Mostly very basic and dull things: Office products, ‘how to use e-mail’, etc. We did learn some HTML in the 4th grade (which is around 16 years), which isn’t programming but a very useful skill to create web pages.

I’d say that in general it’s seemed highly dependent on the teachers: around my school it felt that the variation in ‘computing’ teaching was much, much larger then most other subjects (e.g. maths).

3. Would you say your school lessons helped you become more interested in computing?

Definitely not. I’ve been programming since I was 10 years old and having to sit through hour long courses teaching you ‘e-mail’ can hardly be called motivational.

After elementary school I visited a “Gymnasium” (secondary school) until 13th grade to make my “Abitur” (university-entrance diploma ) which gave me the opportunity to study business and computer science at the University of Paderborn.

2. What did you learn about computing in school (say up to 16)? Did you learn how to write code? Or did you learn how to use PowerPoint and Excel?

We started to learn basic programming skills in BASIC and Pascal in computer science class starting in secondary school. Powerpoint and excel were not on our schedule. Later on (10-13th grade) we could focus on our own projects.

3. Would you say your school lessons helped you become more interested in computing?

No. We had bad equipment and lazy teachers. My dad made me interested in computers many years before with his passion for C64.

4. If you had some examples (good or bad) of your school computing experiences that would be great. I programmed a Tamagotchi with Pascal and designed a homepage for our class … but this was autodidactic style. Our teacher could never catch up with us because he wasn’t keen with computers. In fact this brought me to web design which bankrolled my university life.

It was the year 1990-1992. Estonia had just become independent from Soviet rule. The capitalist computers (read: with Intel processor) were sparse. Yet my school had invested in a computer class. I believe some had color screens.

That class was full of hackers. We had a fantastic thing called a modem. While not many people knew about the opportunity, Estonia had dial in numbers to a satellite link (later a cable) to access internet. I guess the only reason I ended up getting the letter of recognition from the computer class was for avoiding being caught hacking the computers and the system.

That was not going to be a class of ordinary citizens from that class. It produced the computer geeks. And I’m glad for this.

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Tech Europe covers Europe’s technology leaders, their companies, and the people and industries that support them — and their ideas. The blog is edited by Ben Rooney, with contributions from The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires.